


Alone Together

by L_awlietxoxx



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-22 23:48:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13177821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/L_awlietxoxx/pseuds/L_awlietxoxx
Summary: If The Last Jedi had been maybe an hour longer, we might have seen Rey and Kylo Ren having a few more Force bond conversations concerning what happened in the Supremacy, and perhaps the final battle between what remains of both sides' forces. How do Rey and Kylo move forward towards the end, as the Force bond propels them to confront fresh heartbreak and enduring longing for one another?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I knew on the way home from the movie theatre that I needed to write this, even if only for my own closure of the gaping hole Rey and Kylo left in my completely defenseless and unprepared heart. I wrote this fairly quickly, before I really had time to get into the whole black hole of analyzing this complex and immensely fascinating relationship. This fic is probably rather too idealistic and neat, but hey, it helped get me through and I hope it might do the same for others!

_Why did you leave me?_

Rey woke with a gasp. Sweat plastered her hair in her eyes and she fought against blankets, momentarily forgetting where she was. As her breath slowly returned, so did the recollections.

She had rescued her friends, General Organa, and what remained of the Resistance, and they had made an escape in the Falcon. Leia had directed them to a nearby star system holding a long-outdated and unused base. The battered and bleeding Resistance members had been grateful for any shelter – Any place at all where they could safely lay their heads, mourn their great losses, and take time to heal. 

Finn had walked Rey to her room. After making sure she was unhurt, he had promised to come find her first thing in the morning, after she got some much-needed rest. Listening to the stillness pervading the base, a glance around the bare, still-dark room told Rey it couldn’t possibly be morning already. 

She was the only person awake in an empty room. No voice here had awoken her.

She laid down again slowly. Breathing shallowly, she couldn’t be sure whether the Force bond had initiated while she slept, or if she’d only been dreaming; Dreaming of Ben’s eyes the last time she saw them, as she closed the Falcon’s doors against them. 

Even with the flurry of reunions and first meetings that had engulfed her since then, they were the single thing that remained crystal clear before her. 

Two dark pools of pain, with silent, desperate entreaties barely floating at the surface. Regret, and terrible longing churned in their depths.

 

All throughout the next day, Rey drowned.

No matter what she did, she couldn’t banish Ben’s wounded eyes from her mind. She couldn’t stop marveling at how desperate, how helpless they had appeared – Impossibly so, in the face of a man who had done such terrible deeds. She couldn’t stop wondering: What if she hadn’t closed the door? Would she have been able to bring them comfort?

All day, the base came alive with the first stages of regrouping, planning, and mobilizing. With Snoke dead, the First Order’s command chains would be shaken and possibly unstable. The Resistance lacked any great force, but now the First Order might finally be weaker than it ever had been before. 

Where Rey had once felt drawn to their cause and their enduring hope, she now found herself a spectator at the side-lines. She watched Finn in earnest, energetic brainstorming with some of the Commanders, doing everything he could to contribute useful intelligence. She could almost see her past self at his side, almost hear herself contributing equal parts useful and terrible suggestions. 

A chasm could have separated that girl and her. Once she had fought her way tooth and nail off imprisonment on a First Order ship. She had crossed swords with Kylo Ren – Driven by fear for her friends and the conviction that of the man who had once been Ben Solo nothing but a monster remained. 

Now, she knew more about the instability within the First Order and the weaknesses of its new Supreme Leader than any other Resistance member. She could have been at the center of their plans. 

Yet nothing had ever seemed more impossible. How could anyone possibly be cruel enough to bring more pain to those eyes?

 

Finn stayed awake with her deep into the night. They sat curled together on her bed, recounting all that had happened since their parting. 

“I found out gambling wasn’t as glamorous as it seems. Also, never trust code-breakers.”

Rey smiled, her head rested on Finn’s shoulder. 

“You can’t really trust Jedi either, I learned.”

“Hm? Come on, you met the legendary Luke Skywalker! I saw what he did out there so we could escape. I always thought the Jedi’s powers must have been exaggerated, but that was really beyond belief.”

“Beyond belief… That’s a good way to put it, actually.”

Finn nudged her head a bit with his shoulder. “Come on, tell me what it was like to train with him! You definitely got the lifting rocks thing down, so he must have taught you a lot.”

Rey thought for a moment, her eyes once again seeing the landscape of the island on Ach-to.

“He taught me nothing was as I thought. The Force is everywhere, and without prejudice. It exists in the First Order, just as it exists in the Resistance. There is doubt and fault in even the brightest of us. And there is something worth saving in even the darkest.”

“That… sounds like some difficult lessons.”

Rey smiled wryly. “You could say that. Though I have to admit, I didn’t learn all of that only from him.”

Rey felt her thoughts beginning to stray. She tried to focus on Finn’s warmth beside her, and it brought a question to her mind.

“Finn? What gave you the strength to leave the First Order? How did you escape from their control?”

Finn was silent for a moment, processing the unexpected question.

“I’m not sure I’d call it strength. More… fear. Fear of what I would become if I stayed, if I listened to all their commands. During my first raid… if I had pulled the trigger like they wanted me to, I would have lost all my humanity.”

Rey swallowed, fighting to keep her voice strong. “So those who do follow the orders… Or, those who give them. You think no humanity remains to them? There’s nothing left to be saved?”

“Saved?” 

Finn pulled back slightly. He tried to look into Rey’s face, but she avoided his gaze. 

“They don’t want to be saved. All they want to do is destroy everything that’s not like them. Everything that doesn’t conform and obey. All they know is violence, and they will never learn more.”

Rey flinched at the words. In moments like this, when she was far away and all the incredulous things she’d done and been through in the past few days seemed impossible, she felt ashamed. She felt she must have only imagined those eyes holding the deepest human suffering she was sure she would ever see. 

How could such sorrow exist in someone who had caused so much destruction? How could she have put it there?

“Do you think that’s the way of the Jedi? To try to save even those beyond saving – even if it may be futile?” Finn asked.

Rey turned her face away, guarding her expression. “I don’t know enough about the way of the Jedi.” A bitter taste rose on her tongue as she recalled Luke’s words: ‘And I saw in his face the eyes of a frightened boy whose master had failed him.’ 

“And Master Skywalker is gone now.” Rey took a deep breath, trying desperately to emerge from the amassed tangle of her thoughts. “It’s up to us alone to form the future.”

Finn could see the stress weighing on her small form. 

“You need some more rest,” he said, reaching out to hold her shoulder as he stood up from the bed. He lifted the blankets over her as she laid down. A genuine smile appeared on her face for the first time that day. 

“I’m so glad you’re here, Finn.”

“You too.” 

He leaned down to leave a kiss on her forehead before quietly exiting the room. In the darkness, Rey did her best to cling to the warmth and belonging he had left behind.

 

_You will do as commanded or face punishment! Now leave me!_

Bursting into wakefulness, Rey immediately sensed the room flooded with entirely different emotions. Violent, blistering anger buffeted her as she watched the back of Ben’s hunched shoulders rise and fall across the room. Blurred shapes passed in front of him until he was alone. His heavy breathing filled the space, suffocating her. 

_I bet you’re laughing now._

Rey recoiled. She knew he was addressing her, and yet she had never heard such coldness in his voice. 

_Kylo Ren finally fulfilled his goal of becoming the Supreme Leader, and now his forces aren’t even organized enough to launch an attack. You and Skywalker should be very proud at how you’ve humiliated me._

He turned. Only by steeling herself to the bone did Rey manage not to shudder when she saw the raging fire in his eyes.

_Oh, I forgot. Skywalker is dead._

Rey took a deep breath, schooling her features into calm. She reminded herself this was the same man she had sat across from in that fire-lit hut, who had extended his hand to her in such a trusting, desperate search for human empathy. 

“You only humiliate yourself,” she finally replied. “Calling yourself an empty name we both know you’ve left behind.” 

His expression remained impassive stone as Rey stood up from the bed.

“Luke is gone. But with his sacrifice, you can finally let go of the anger and hatred you’ve carried all this time. I know you think he betrayed you, but he made a mistake - …”

_I was a boy! He swore to show me the way out from the darkness but instead he condemned me to it!_

“He was weak, and frightened! Just as all men can be. Just as you are right now.”

Rey watched the ripples of suppressed emotion and reaction move across Ben’s face. She watched his lips tighten as his throat struggled to work.

“Ben.” As she had hoped, she saw a faint glimmer of light open in his eyes again when she spoke the name. “It’s not too late, Ben. You’re free now. You destroyed Snoke – You alone had the strength. It’s never too late to find your way.”

_I alone?_

He echoed her words softly and bitterly. The second word felt like a slap. Then, just as quickly as it had died, she felt his fury rising again.

_You denied me. Left me. Now you stand with my enemies against me. Even now I can sense the presence of the rebels all around you – Those friends whose cause you’ve so blindly embraced._

Ben’s lips gave a sudden twist, his face contorting in barely-repressed torment. 

_Was it all lies? While you were training with Skywalker. To try to turn me – Did he tell you how you might best win me over? How you might trick me into thinking you and I could ever –_

“No!” Rey exclaimed, rushing three steps closer to him before she could think better of it. “How could you even suggest…” 

Horrified at herself, Rey’s words came up short. What could she say? That her friends here meant nothing? How could she explain that the bone-deep loneliness she had felt on Ach-to had been the same as what she had endured her whole life long – And yet so unbearably deeper? While she had learned the ways and vastness of the Force, she had become even more terribly aware of her own insignificance. Was fate really so cruel to imbue her with an awareness of the Force – Only for it to bring her a deeper understanding of the size and scope of a whole world holding no family to love her? 

Thinking of Finn - the closest thing she could call to family - she knew that he loved her. Yet that made it even more painful to know that neither Finn nor anyone else in the whole Resistance base could ever understand the experience of her solitude. 

What it was like to sense the energy moving through the whole universe, flowing on endlessly; Regardless of her protests that no, she yearned to be something fixed, something permanent.

She could never forget the moment of revelation in the hut, when she had felt Ben’s fingers brush her skin in the heat of the fire. He was the only solid anchor she had ever known. In that moment alone, she had been something that mattered across the whole universe.

Rey took a breath to calm herself, focusing on the energy tying her to Ben and sparking between them. 

“In your heart, you know. You know that I’ve never lied to you. You know I never could.”

_If that’s true, tell me you don’t know how right it felt when we joined as one. Tell me you don’t imagine what could have been, if you had said yes._

The desperation and longing that had kindled in his eyes again rent at her heart. She could not lie to him… But neither could she allow herself to think down such lines. 

He advanced with slow, measured steps, until she had to tilt her head back slightly, biting her lip as her gaze remained trapped in his eyes. With desperate, unforgiving tenderness in his look, he kept her locked in place.

For a long moment, he only looked at her. Silently, he seemed to channel every drop of his power into the force bond, as if through will alone he might pull her close enough to touch her.

 _No,_ he finally relented. _It doesn’t matter anymore._

The resignation and hurt in his voice brought Rey’s breath short. 

_You’re with them now. Light years away. But even so, I can still see your thoughts._

His mouth twisted like the slash of a knife, and before her eyes, she watched Kylo Ren begin to weigh him down again.

_I see him running to you, when you made your precious friends their little escape route. He embraced you, and for a moment, maybe you thought you did have a home, after all. There was no more use for a monster like me._

By the end, he was spitting the words in disgust. But tears began to bud in Rey’s eyes, because she saw right through the storm of fury, struggling to cover the darkest holes of loneliness and self-hate. She wanted desperately to look away from his eyes and yet couldn’t, because they were the same tortured eyes that haunted her memory. 

She hadn’t imagined them. Even after becoming the Supreme Leader, he was still the broken man seeking desperately for his dearest hope – The same she had closed the Falcon door against. 

“I’m sorry, Ben,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry I had to go. But you know I couldn’t have said yes. You know I couldn’t have abandoned everything and everyone.”

_I would have, for you._

Her breath stopped, because in that moment he was transformed back to the man holding out his open hand and heart to her. The man who had finally found the strength to destroy the evil force that had held him captive for so long, when remaining under its influence meant hurting her. 

Stoically forcing tears back, Rey gave a firm shake of her head. “No. You still cared too much about power. And because of that, you could never understand me.”

He stumbled back half a step, her words visibly washing over him in a rough wave.

 _I understand more than you think. I know power didn’t bring me the solace I thought it would, when I put my saber through Han Solo’s heart._

“Neither would sharing it with me.” 

His eyes took on a deep gleam, and he gazed at her with a bittersweet twist to his lips.

_So tell me, then, what gives you purpose, Rey?_

She sensed the challenge, accompanied by the slight mocking edge. She remembered with a flush of resentment when he forced her to admit to being nothing and no one – with no great lineage or destiny to fulfill. Yet in the next heartbeat, she remembered the next thing he had said: ‘Not to me.’ 

She remembered that nothing had ever meant more to her. 

With a deep, admittedly slightly shaky breath, Rey took a step to close the space that had opened between them. With slow, gentle fingers, she reached out to place her fingertips against the back of Ben’s hand. It took most of her focus to ensure the connection was strong enough for his senses to feel the touch. When she looked up into his shocked face, she nearly lost her concentration. 

“What gives me purpose? Helping and protecting the people I care about.”

Ben made a choked noise in his throat, his eyes opening again into their pools of heartbroken longing as his hand trembled slightly beneath hers. Rey could sense their connection sputtering, fritzing between them. But before Ben slipped away and vanished before her, she felt the unmistakable caress of a hesitant, feather-light hand against her cheek. 

She couldn’t be sure if Ben heard her gasp before he disappeared. 

 

"What happened to you?" Finn asked anxiously, when he came into Rey’s room the next morning to find her sitting up in one corner of her bed, pale and hugging her knees to her chest. She looked up and managed a slight smile.

"Just a bad dream."

She floated through the day. She might have been a ghost, for all the input she gave or difference her presence made. 

Her focus always seemed to be elsewhere. Her senses stayed tuned to search for Ben's presence, her ears constantly piqued to his voice and her skin to his touch. She swore her cheek still tingled where his fingers had brushed.

Sitting in General Organa's conference that afternoon, Rey's cheek burned each time someone at the table brought up potential strategies to fight Kylo Ren. Leia remained silent, but each time Rey couldn't help a furtive glance towards the older woman. Rey would catch the way her countenance fell and her gaze would slide away from the speaker. Respect for a mother’s silent pain was all that kept Rey from seizing Leia by the shoulders and demanding they work together to draw Ben back to them. 

That, and Rey's total inability to explain her own connection to him. 

After the meeting, Finn went to help Poe with repairs to his ship. Rey ate her dinner without tasting a bite. She retired to her room, and only then did she realize that in the whole day, she had barely spoken to anyone. 

The thought made her uneasy - She knew that cutting herself off wasn't healthy, that it would only make her less sure of herself and perhaps threaten her access to her powers... But she also knew the single voice she had longed the whole day to hear wasn't one she would hear in this base.

Late that night, when the base had gone still and the darkness become deep, Rey felt it. She had been lying awake, trying to make sense of her self - Why her chest felt more empty and her heart more heavy than ever, even after she had succeeded in returning to the Resistance and delivering them to safety. Why even when she was reunited with the people who were the only family she had ever known, she felt more alone than ever.

She sensed a nudge against the fingers of her right hand. She willed the connection to open further, until it seemed Ben's whispering voice was so near, she should have been able to feel his breath against her ear. 

_I'm not as strong as I should be. This bond calls to me and I cannot close it._

"Do you try to?"

If she'd been slightly more awake, she might have asked the question with more fear in her voice. Feeling the connection open up around her had finally put her mind to the purest rest she had found all day.

Ben was silent for a long moment. Then, with a caress of breath against Rey's ear: _No._

"Neither do I."

_I suppose we're both too weak for our own good._

For a while they were both silent, and yet the bond endured. Both held it open, simply drawing each sensation and comfort they could from the other's presence.

Finally, Rey turned in bed so she could see him. He was sitting on the edge of his own bed, his chest bared again. He was looking in her direction, but his gaze seemed sleepy and unfocused - entirely disarmed as he took her in.

Rey whispered with a taste of bitter pain across her tongue, "But that's not true is it?"

She watched his features sharpen again somewhat, looking inquisitively at her. 

"Our connection may confuse you, it might have complicated your plans... But we both know it hasn't made either of us weak. Maybe I could trust you more if it had... But the truth is, I'm just another means of power for you."

She watched his brows knit together in a mix of surprise and anguish. She could see that he wanted to correct her, and yet didn't know what to say.

_You say this because I asked you to join me, rather than abandoning the fight?_

"I didn't ask you to abandon it. I asked you to make the bravest, most difficult choice of all: The right one, and come back to the light with me."

She watched him closely, now that she knew how to read even his most deeply repressed emotions. She watched a brief moment of shame and regret, quickly morphing into resentment and anger. She had come to expect it. Almost every time she made him feel something difficult, he would retreat into anger.

_You're beginning to sound like Skywalker. Don't forget, the light abandoned me._

Rey shook her head. "That's not true. You owe it to yourself to try again. I sense that right now you feel weaker, more unsure, with less direction than you ever have..." His eyes flared at her again and she saw his fists clench at his sides, but she continued calmly, utterly unthreatened. "But there was resolve in you before, and good. How else do you think I could have relied on you so completely when we fought together?"

She sat up in bed herself. Rey did not stand up to approach him, afraid he might draw away from her. But she looked at him more intently, certain he must recognize the truth of what she spoke.

"You defeated Snoke all on your own. It was the bravest thing I've ever seen, to resist a force like his. You have nothing to prove to anyone. You owe nothing to anyone. Only the chance to yourself to finally be happy."

_What chance do I have of that? I'm a murderer who most of the galaxy wants dead._

Rey did her best not to flinch at his stony, uncompromising words.

 _Do I have a chance with you?_ Ben's words could have been intimate and gentle, but his tone remained hard and mocking. She watched a sneer grow on his face. 

_With you - Who turned against me when I offered you everything I had? You, who could not accept me for who I am?_

"This isn't who you are! This twisted version of Ben Solo made by Snoke is what I cannot accept! I have sensed the brightness - the honesty and the gentleness that lives within you, burning right now as we speak. It will always be there, and the more desperately you try to stamp it out, the more it will haunt you."

Ben's lips had curled back with the effort of his shallow breathing. Anger burned in his eyes at her, but she knew she had said what she needed to.

She took a deep breath, and decided to continue being honest. 

"That part of you - That's what keeps drawing me to you. When you sat across from me and touched my hand... I realized I was every bit as lost, as unable to understand myself as you were. But with you there..." Her voice dropped to a whisper as she swallowed painfully. "I felt more complete than I ever have. For the first time in my life."

His anger peaked and broke, and she could almost feel the effort it took him not to reach out to her. 

_Do you feel that even now? After what's happened and what I've done?_

Rey looked away. She knew the answer immediately, though she didn't want to admit it to herself. But she knew she was asking Ben to explore and acknowledge all the most painful, difficult parts of himself, and so it would only be fair if she did the same and bared everything to him.

"Part of me will always feel that," she whispered. "Part of me will always yearn for it."

She looked up at him again, and she could see him trembling. She could sense him about to fade away again as his emotions wore away his focus. She hurried to add, "I know what you could be, Ben, and I'll always be here to forgive you and welcome you. To give you another chance."

She smiled at him. "Always."

She thought she heard him stifle a sob before the connection faded.

 

The next day, Rey walked as far away from the base as her legs could take her. She needed to practice meditation like Luke had taught her. She needed to locate her inner calm again, her source of both peace and power. She didn’t mind when a porg accompanied her by riding on her shoulder. Once she found a peaceful clearing to seat herself in, the porg settled down in her lap and his soft bleats helped lull her into a meditative state. 

She kept her eyes shut long enough for the sun to sink lower in the sky. She retreated into and searched within herself, finding the energy Luke had taught her to seize and allow to course through her, until her sense of self simultaneously faded away and fused with the energy peacefully sliding around and through her. 

When she finally allowed her eyes to open, she could not be sure if she saw what was really there, or if the Force had seized her senses. 

Ben sat directly across from her, his folded legs and closed eyes in perfect symmetry to her. She saw the utter peace upon his face, and only her present state of extreme removal from reality saved her heart from being gripped by emotion. How she yearned to see that kind of tranquility upon his face, a final resolution of the dark and light battling so bitterly within him.

 

Rey laid in bed at the edge of sleep when she felt the brush of Ben’s fingertips. She sensed almost each cell of contact, as his fingers stroked from the back of her wrist to her fingers. 

_I wish I were there with you._

His bare fingers curled around hers, cradling them with gentleness almost worshipful. 

Amidst the burst of longing, confusion, and sorrow on his behalf, his words alighted a flicker of hope within her. Always wanting to reach for hope, she thought his wording must have mattered. He wanted to be here, with her and away from the First Order. The gentle, resigned entreaty was so much different than when he had impossibly asked her to join him.

She curved her own fingers to meet his. 

Then she heard him go on, his raw voice rumbling through every inch of her. _I have achieved the power I always believed I sought. I have risen above even the Supreme Leader. Darth Vader’s legacy is in my grasp. And yet I feel weaker… more alone than I ever have. How can the world remain so empty?_

Rey could say nothing. Silent tears melted down her face like ice in the sunshine. She mourned not only his terrible pain, but for her own as well, which she recognized as exactly the same.

“I wish you were here too.”

His thumb stroked her wrist as his fingers held hers close. Through tear-filled eyes that hurt too much to open, she could still see the figure of him kneeling at her bedside, his head bent low.

 

Rey choked breaths like painful stones as she stood in the control center, her gaze unwavering from the blinking lights that indicated the Resistance ship formation. She watched them traveling closer and closer to the First Order command ship, as the officers and soldiers around her reported status and updates. 

She watched their formation split and line up according to the battle plans drawn up by General Organa and Poe Dameron – informed by Finn’s intel on the First Order command ship’s defenses.

“Arm, and prepare to lower your cloaking shields,” Leia commanded.

Not far from her side, Rey could see the tension making Leia’s form rigid. She could see where the woman’s fingers turned white with the strength of her grip on the edge of the screen before her.

“All units in position,” Poe’s voice reported in.

Rey took a step forward, watching their ships’ tracking lights encircle the First Order ship and then begin to scatter as they dodged gunfire.

She watched their circle slowly close around Ben’s ship. 

“Just like last time with the Dreadnought,” Poe’s voice crackled in again, “Red squadron, guard the bomber and make sure it reaches position, while Yellow squadron run interference and fire on their thrusters to keep them distracted.”

She wasn’t sure she could watch, and yet was utterly unable to look away. Even as her heart thudded against her chest with fear for all those she had watched suit up and clamber in their ships a few hours before, even as she was nearly suffocated by the anxiety, determination, and concern radiating from all those standing in the control center with her… She couldn’t stop remembering the sight of that same ship growing nearer and nearer through narrow escape pod windows. 

She couldn’t banish Ben’s face as it appeared through the smoke billowing around her pod. Cavernous eyes that had seemed unprepared for hope, lips that falteringly attempted a smile after long forgetting how.

“The package is armed, awaiting delivery.”

“Deliver now, deliver now! We’re taking heavy fire!”

“Red leader is down – it’s now or never.”

“Thirty seconds until delivery… Just hold on! The more fighters we get them to send out after us, the more will be lured into the blast.”

“The package is live!”

The entire control center held their breath as one. Every eye in the room locked on the bright red indicators falling ever closer to their target, while the tracking indicators for their own ships rushed out beyond the range of the blast. 

Fire lanced through Rey. She gasped, stumbling against a chair an instant before the red lights unfolded on every screen, indicating detonation. 

“Detonation successful! And just as calculated – the shockwaves are taking out the First Order’s smaller ships!”

Rey collapsed into a chair. Cheers erupted around her, but her chest throbbed with phantom pain. She could not see clearly when she tried to look past her own surroundings, only sparks, fire, and panic. Ben’s shock, his scramble to issue orders to save the fleet fraying his focus. Then she gasped in true horror, her hand flying involuntarily to press against her stomach, where she felt Ben’s blood course.

“No…”

“Rey?” Finn had rushed to her. His jubilant smile dimmed when he saw her distraught expression. 

“Are you okay?!” 

He took her shoulders between his hands. Only his firm touch dispelled her link to Ben’s senses. Breathing hard, it took a moment for her to look up and focus on him. 

“You’re okay!” Finn tried to reassure her. “Did you sense something in the Force? It must be celebrating with us, right? The attack worked! It was a success!”

Still breathing hard, Rey let Finn draw her into a tight hug. She clung to his jacket, pressing her face deep against her shoulder in a desperate attempt to anchor herself here, in her own body and her own mind. She couldn’t endure Ben’s pain. 

“Yes… of course. A victory!”

 

Rey felt utterly empty - Hallowed out between her presence here, and her attachment far away. She floated in limbo, in neither place truly. She had been swept along into the celebrations, but all she did was fight her way to empty corners of the room where she could struggle for air.

She waited, anxious and terrified, until Ben’s mind calmed enough for her to find it again. When it finally did, he filtered in all at once, focused in a barrage of anger and antagonism beyond anything she had ever imagined she would feel through their bond. 

_Celebrating. I should have known._

His upper lip curled back, his eyes gleaming with menace. He was shirtless, but a thick layer of bandages covered his torso. She couldn’t help taking half a step back.

“I never wanted… I had no part in this.”

“Rey? What was that?” someone asked beside her.

At the same moment, Ben thundered, _No part?! All I’ve done to bring me here has been for you, and today I bled because you’ve joined my enemies against me! You are all of this!_

Rey choked, stumbling as the person beside her gripped her arm.

“Are you alright?! Perhaps you should lie down…”

“Yes… I’d better,” she whispered.

She began to blindly push her way through the crowd. Even in the hallways leading to her room, she could barely walk for the weight of Ben’s pained hostility. It cut her as deep as a saber wound.

The door to her room slid closed behind her, and Ben materialized again in full. This time, she took in the smears of sweat and blood still lingering on his face, the rage smoldering within him and threatening to burst into violence. She did not fear for herself exactly, for even in his fury she still knew he would never harm her. What rooted her to the spot was her terror for him. She could see his injuries had been tended to, but she felt his mind dangling dangerously close to the teeth of Kylo Ren’s black rage: The all-consuming defense mechanism that tore his gentle mind to unrecognizable shards.

A tremble remained in her hands, but she forced her voice to remain solid.

“I am not your enemy, Ben. I never will be. You know I could never have a part in hurting you. But this…” She gestured towards him, reflecting to him through her own vision the terrible distortion of his features by the dark tempest that carried him beyond any place she could follow.

She couldn’t help her voice falling to a whisper, “This is a vengefulness I also cannot have a part in.”

With a shaking breath, she took a small step closer to him. He stood rooted to the spot, his eyes still hard as flint. She could see the muscles in his arms still tense and taut.

“Ben…” In this moment, he flinched at the name. “I meant it, when I said you’re not alone anymore. I will always be here, when you remove the anger and hatred that makes up your mask.” 

One of Ben’s eyes twitched. He lifted his head slowly, taking her and her words in with a mixture of haughty, stubborn arrogance, and reluctant sensitivity.

“You know, just as I do, that it’s a mask when you kill and destroy. But when you let it rule you…” She took a deep, slow breath in, steeling herself and mustering the courage to speak, “You do things I can’t forgive.”

A ripple of emotion escaped his defenses, flitting across his face.

 _What of my forgiveness? You lie to me. You betray me._

Rey shook her head firmly. “You betrayed my faith in you! I would have fought for you. I would have stood with you, but you chose power once again and continued to hide in your darkness, where you don’t have to see the parts of you that are still human – the parts that might hurt.”

Suddenly, he lunged half of the distance towards her and she jumped instinctively to a defensive position. 

_I, hiding?! I trusted you enough, cared about you enough to destroy the Master who made me. I stopped hiding for you! And the moment I offered you everything within my grasp… Then, I realized I never knew what it was to hurt until the moment you turned against me._

“I didn’t, I swear. You asked too much of me…” Rey tried to respond, faltering as she watched Ben crumble before her, his explosive anger melting away into the tortured man who had reached for her hand in flickering firelight with trembling, exposed fingers…

 _Why did you leave? Why did you leave me?_

Unfiltered anguish flooded Ben’s face. His figure, so tall and menacing only seconds ago, crumpled in despair and Rey’s vision swam. His voice had gone small, and yet held more heartbreak than Rey knew could exist in the world.

His devastated words struck deep, slicing at the part of her heart that had ached with too much guilt and dark wonder of possibilities than she could acknowledge. Yet that buried corner of her heart was so raw and battered, she immediately knew she hadn’t imagined hearing drifts of his voice at the corners of sleep or between the words of others, when her ears weren’t focused. She had heard him asking the question repeatedly, at the edge of her consciousness.

_Why did you make me think you cared for me and then leave me with nothing?_

Tears trickled from Rey’s eyes, as she watched Ben’s bottom lip tremble. Over the last few days, she had stopped herself from imagining what his expression might have been, when Ben woke in the throne room alone and discovered she had left him. She had known she would not be able to bear it. 

“You left me no choice. You know I could never go where you wanted to take me.” 

Rey was pulled to absolute desperation by her own heartbreak, witnessing what her own actions had done to him and still blindly needing to try to make him see… 

“You would not have asked that of me… if you really loved me.”

Ben’s eyes blew wide, his expression freezing. For a heartbeat, Rey reined in her emotions enough to fear she had made an irreversible miscalculation…

And then Ben spoke, instantly sunk back into the depths of every tender and honest moment they had once shared.

_How could you think I do not love you?_

Rey’s eyes widened. Her breathing almost stopped and her heart stuttered. She had no words for what she felt in that moment. Rapture bordering on grief, solace that melded into the deepest, most terrible remorse. 

She looked into his eyes, seeing entirely naked purpose there. Nothing had ever been more plain to her than his desperate, entirely unselfish need in that moment: Not to hear her return the sentiment, but to be absolutely sure she believed the truth of his own.

Rey was unable to keep herself from weeping. Never before had she seen the true Ben Solo so clearly; and yet she remained helpless, unsure how to deliver him to the peace and consolation he deserved. She yearned to take him in her arms, but he still seemed so far from her… Still shrouded in the self-doubt and inner hatred that kept her divided from him.

So he came to her. When he saw her fall apart, he reacted instinctively. In that moment, he was utterly free from conflict, free from the urges and pits and shadows that so often tore at his insides. He moved with hardly a thought as he closed the space between them to gather her in his arms and draw her close. 

Through the Force bond, each point of physical contact washed over their senses with bright, almost overwhelming clarity. Even trembling, she was soft in his arms. Not small or weak, but exquisite. 

He was hot to her touch. Where her hands instinctively clutched at his bare back, she felt a solid, unyielding force that would never fail her. 

He stroked her hair. Even as tears continued to trickle down her cheeks, she clung to him with all the strength she imagined it might take to hold him there forever. 

Forever could not last. A minute passed and the bond began to waver under the intensity of their contact. She whispered his name once more before he faded away from her – Before he stood alone in the center of his own room, cradling empty air to his chest with more gentleness than he had ever thought himself capable of.

 

Rey found General Organa in the command center, drawing up plans for what would likely be the most important battle the Resistance had ever fought. Everyone in the base bristled with the touch of excitement, with the brimming of hope. After the attack of the previous day, the First Order had been reduced to numbers even lower than their own.

“Excuse me, General, I must speak with you.”

Rey could tell Leia was about to attempt to put her off, but Rey stood firm. When Leia turned towards her, the resolve in Rey’s face gave her pause. Leia waved off the commanders on either side of her, telling them she would return shortly. She led Rey to a small side room, where a door slid closed behind them granting privacy.

Rey cut right to it. 

“We both know the First Order are coming tomorrow, with everything they have left. You need me in the battle, but I won’t fight unless there’s an alternate plan.”

Leia’s eyes narrowed in question. “Alternate plan? For what?”

Rey took a moment before answering, to make sure Leia knew she was absolutely earnest.

“Saving Ben.”

Leia leaned away, visibly taken aback. Hurt, anger, and tenderness warred in her face, all in an instant.

“What do you mean by this?” Leia’s voice went hard and sharp, “I have spent these last years struggling with every inch of my being to come to terms with the loss of my son and you…”

“No one is ever truly gone.”

Leia fell silent. She went pale as she recalled the final touch of Luke’s lips against her brow. She looked deep into Rey’s eyes, searching and considering.

“You think a sudden outpouring of charity on your part will be enough to…”

“You don’t understand. I’ve seen into his heart. There is light there, and there is love.”

Leia heard the conviction in Rey’s voice. She had heard the way her voice faltered slightly across the last words. Leia sensed they meant something great to the girl before her – something undeniable and true.

And yet, so many times Leia had been sure she herself had known the very same conviction, and each time she had been wounded yet more deeply.

Leia’s voice came out hoarse and cracked, across too many failed attempts to heal. 

“He killed his father.”

“And it kills him, every single day.”

Her strong, piercing gaze still locked with Rey’s, searching to make absolutely sure she understood, Leia whispered to Rey, “You believe in him?”

“I do. But I need you to believe in me.”

In her heart, Leia wanted so dearly to be convinced. But she did not know if she had the strength, even once more, to unbury the object of her deepest love and devotion. He was buried beneath such carnage, such loss, and the worst of her own failings.

Rey sensed the conflict waging within the woman before her. Rey held out a hand to her, her fingers open and palm up.

“Believe in me. In us both.”

Leia looked between Rey’s resolute face and her open hand. Cautiously, Leia laid her fingers in Rey’s palm. She immediately gasped, her eyes shooting wide. Once she was absolutely sure of what she felt, her startled gaze darted to Rey’s face.

“I feel him, through you.”

Rey simply nodded, still holding Leia’s hand. 

A single tear found its way to Leia’s eyes. She could never mistake her son’s presence. But for years, she had despaired that she would never again sense his gentleness, never again know his warmth. And yet it was here, unmistakable as it emanated from within Rey.

“Give me a chance. And if I succeed, I need to know that there will be an alternate plan. One that includes his safety,” Rey asked one last time.

After a long moment, Leia drew her hand back and roughly brushed the single tear from her cheek. 

“Of course. I will give my commanders an alternate set of orders – Should the need arise.”

Afterwards, Rey hung back along the far wall of the control center. She watched the General in admiration as the older woman returned to her commanding duties as stoic and unflappable as ever. 

Once the main battle plans were completed, Leia spoke in a voice that drew the whole room’s attention and permitted no dispute.

“I want to ensure we are prepared for every contingency tomorrow, every set of possibilities that may arise. This plan as we’ve made it we will each be committed to carrying out until our last breaths. However, I want to make each of you aware of a contingency scenario, and it will be the responsibility of each of you to make sure every man and woman under your command is equally aware.

We have an operative within the First Order. The nature and identity of this operative is unknown, but the intelligence they have delivered is unfailing. There is a possibility that Kylo Ren will abandon command during the battle. If he does so, he is not to come under our fire. He is to be treated as a non-hostile.”

A murmur circled about the room. Listeners shifted their weight uncomfortably. Leia stood as immoveable as ever. 

“You have your orders. If I declare the contingency active tomorrow, I expect them to be carried out.” 

She glared around the room until each person nodded in respect and acknowledgement.

“Yes, General.”

Passing on her way out of the room, Leia found Rey’s gaze and held it firm. 

Rey had just begun to let out a breath of relief when she felt Leia’s hand take her arm.

“If you’re going to fight tomorrow, you need a weapon.”

“I’ve been training with some spears and swords in the armory. I’m afraid I’ll never get used to blasters.”

“Not the same as a light saber, hm?”

Rey pictured Luke’s broken light saber in her mind, her thoughts lingering over it mournfully. Rey hadn’t owned it for long, yet it had already begun to feel like a part of her.

“Come with me,” Leia directed. 

Rey followed the General down several corridors until they reached Leia’s own quarters. Rey followed her in, then stood silently watching as Leia walked over to a large chest that seemed to hold the only items she had managed to salvage during their evacuation and escape.

Rey waited, curious, until Leia visibly stilled, her searching hands pausing in the chest. Then, the older woman slowly straightened. She took a long moment looking down at whatever she held in her hands before turning towards Rey.

Leia held the hilt of a light saber in her hands. It looked slightly battered, but Rey could recognize Luke’s handiwork on sight. Rey looked back to Leia’s face, and found Leia watching her with a mix of lamentation and affection.

“Luke left this with me, before he went into his exile. I believe he left it for Ben, if… one day…”

Biting her lip, Rey quickly crossed the room and held one hand out. Letting out a low, quaking breath, Leia placed the weapon in her hand. 

Rey could tell it hadn’t been used in years, yet even still, the light saber seemed to instantly thrum with life at her touch. Rey extended it before her, curling both hands around it, and it exploded out in bright, dazzling green.

Something came to life in Leia’s face in the green hue. A renewed spark flashed in her eyes. 

Rey withdrew the blade. She looked at Leia again with a look of both wonder and gratitude.

“It is for Ben. We will use it for him.”

 

_Tomorrow, this will all end._

Ben wasn’t looking at her. He was standing in the hangar again, looking out over an army of droids and storm troopers at work repairing ships and arming guns.

Rey wanted to go to him. She wanted to reach out and draw him away from weapons and violence and war. But she knew that right now, ‘Join me; Leave all of this and come with me’ would work no better than when he had spoken the same to her in the throne room. 

She remembered the contingency plan, and prayed it would be enough.

“Yes, it will.”

Ben finally turned. But even then, his expression remained guarded.

_What will we do? The moment when we see each other as enemies across the battlefield._

Rey saw the accusation in his eyes. She could sense him thinking, ‘You’ve chosen your side.’

“Perhaps it will not come to that.” 

Rey stood and walked to stand beside where his image stood. While she looked through a window showing lush plains of green, he looked over sparks and machinery. 

“You once asked me to join you, because you did not think you could follow where I had to go. Perhaps tomorrow will prove you wrong.”

He was silent for a long time. Rey felt his heart beating. She felt his fingertips pinching the edge of his black sleeves, worrying the fabric. She felt the quiet and cold of the hangar where he stood. And the whole time, she felt the slight yet constant warmth he gave off beside her. She wondered if he could feel it himself, or whether he created it only for her, maybe unconsciously. 

_Perhaps._

 

Rey fought in a flowing fury. Blasters, screams, and destruction clamored in all directions. After a short battle in the atmosphere, what remained of the First Order ships had reached the surface and spilled fighters across the once fertile and airy plains.

Rey channeled her focus to move with the frantic energy around her, rather than be dragged beneath its tide. She anticipated blows, deflected shots, and aimed light saber slashes to do the most damage while taking the least amount of life. 

She had sensed the moment Ben stepped onto the planet’s surface. Her entire body had momentarily thrummed with his proximity. Since then, she had had to push that aching awareness to the back of her mind – Keep it from distracting her defenses, but never to ignore its light.

She knew he was still unharmed. But she could sense that he was fighting just like her, his attention siphoned away.

Rey lost all track of time, and gradually also of her allies. Everyone had dispersed as the battle spread farther, and she could no longer try to defend them. Their only ongoing form of communication were the inner-ear buds each Resistance fighter wore to deliver updates and orders, though it had now gone silent. 

She knew she must have been wading deeper into enemy territory, as more storm troopers seemed to surround her every minute and defending herself grew more and more challenging. Yet each time she feared she would soon be overwhelmed, Resistance fighters would push forward in bursts behind her, scattering the storm troopers’ fire. Raising her saber, Rey renewed her charge forward with a yell.

A tall, hulking droid with double-barreled blasters for arms stepped into her path. Undaunted, she darted forward faster than its shots could follow. While the droid’s scanners frantically searched for her, she cleanly sliced off one of its arms. It reeled off-balance, and Rey plunged her light saber straight through its other arm, just below the shoulder joint. She kept a tight grip on the saber hilt, but the energy beam had become lodged in the heavy mass of machinery. She followed the droid’s crashing fall to the ground. Quickly on her feet again, she tugged the sword loose. 

Sparks and flames immediately burst out from the hole she had left. She instinctively covered her head as the droid’s fizzing body burst apart in an explosion of smoke and flames. She shut her eyes, stealing herself for searing heat and pain.

It did not come. When she opened her eyes, she saw a flickering energy shield had appeared between her and the explosion. She looked through the smoke around her, seeing small fires burning in the grass around her feet and fighters on both sides stumbling in the smoke. Suddenly they all seemed far away. 

Then the smoke dispersed enough for her to see him. 

Ben stood several feet away. He held one gloved hand outstretched, sharp focus etched into his unmasked face and his blazing red light saber hanging almost forgotten in his other hand. His arm slowly lowered. His gaze found her face as the force shield he had created to contain the blast faded away.

For an instant, Rey could not breathe. She had forgotten the intensity of standing directly in his presence – of looking straight into those blazing, tormented eyes. Last time, gazing upon him through the window of her escape pod, her body had succumbed to a thrill of tantalizing pleasure and excitement. Now, she felt weighted down by the singular importance of this meeting. 

She would not let them repeat their previous mistakes.

She breathed his name too softly to hear through the surrounding sounds of battle, yet he shuddered all the same. She straightened her shoulders as she turned to face him, making herself take measured steps towards him.

“Please. You have the power to end this. I know bloodshed is never what you wanted.”

“You don’t know what I want.” His voice rung empty of all but bitterness. It was his fierce eyes that challenged her, goaded her into remembering all he had bared for her. She could feel the wound within him still – Left by her departure the last time they had stood face to face. It still gushed heartbreak and accusation. 

“Of course I do.” 

She had come to stand just a few feet in front of him. Her expression silently pleaded with him, begging him to lower his defenses. His posture remained stiff and defensive, his face set and stoic as he watched her. He retained a palpable edge, wary of the only person in this whole battle who had the power to destroy him. 

“We want the same things, Ben. We want an end to all this violence. We don’t want to be alone anymore. We want to be-…”

“Together?!” he shouted suddenly and madly enough to make her flinch. “Don’t lie to me! You only want to save your scum Resistance friends. You have used me. You hoped to use me to stop the First Order, once I killed Snoke for you. You are just like the rest!” 

This might have been another of his rages, but for the way his lips trembled and Rey noticed moisture in his eyes. Her heart tore at his words, but she knew this moment was too important for her to lose herself in the hurt he was trying to inflict – A taste of what she had subjected him to when she left him. 

“You are the one lying to yourself!” She responded, sharply enough that he fell silent, though his eyes still glowered with barely-suppressed fury. “You know that my trust in you, my feelings for you were real! You know that when I came to you that day, it was because I wanted to help guide you from the darkness that now has almost consumed you. I believed you could find your way back to the light! I know that that is what you want! I have seen your soul, Ben, the same way you have seen mine.”

She took a step closer to him, thankful when he neither shrunk back nor raised his saber.

“You are stronger than you know.” She could speak more gently, now that she stood nearer to him and the battle raged out past the smoke. “You are strong enough to choose for yourself. I know it.”

She could see his eyes changing, struggling. The Ben who took a different name, who killed and destroyed to hide the horrible, consuming self-hatred within him, was beginning to allow hints of her own wounded, confused, and tender Ben to filter through. She caught snatches of him fighting his way back to her. She could tell by the tremble of his hand how difficult of a fight it was.

“I tried to follow you once. I gave up everything but… I still could not grasp the light that shines from you. I… I reach for it, Rey, but a hole in me drags me back…”

She was almost close enough now to reach for him. For a moment that tore at her very soul, she watched his blazing eyes battling bitterly with the vulnerable quiver of his lips. Her bare fingers shaking slightly, she began to reach out for him.

His arm gave an irrepressible spasm, burning a wide hole in the grass with a violent jerk of his saber. Rey held herself firm and gave no notice, even as his red light saber smoked where it had sunk into the ground. She kept her hand out to him.

“You have to let go of all the lies you have kept in your heart. You have to admit that this quest for power, to rule and be feared… It is empty. You will be empty, so long as you cling to it.

Anyone else would not have noticed any change in Ben’s face. But Rey knew him more deeply than simple vision could ever allow. She had never felt a stronger resonance with his soul than she did in that moment. She could feel its anguish tearing at her own; she could feel it calling to her for aid in its struggle. Its pain was terrible to perceive, and yet, its profound intensity kept her hope burning strong within her. She took another step closer, her hand still outstretched in reassurance and offering.

His eyes had gone gentler now. A war still raged within them, but Rey could see beseeching tenderness there, calling to her the closer she came; Begging her for deliverance.

She swallowed hard, past a moment of self-doubt. She quieted her mind enough to let it fill with Ben’s need and silent pleas. She let her heart soften enough to show her the way to answer them – the way to free him.

Her voice dropped to a whisper, meant for him alone. Even as the blasts of battle sounded around them, they perceived nothing but each other.

“You think there can be nothing else for you. You believe everyone deserted you, or turned against you. … Even me.”

Looking down for a moment, Rey flicked the switch off and let her saber drop to the ground. When she lifted her eyes to meet his again, they were solid as steel with her conviction.

“But that’s not true. I swear to you, Ben, from this moment on I will be at your side. I will do everything in my power to protect you.”

Ben’s face crumpled, looking at her with a mixture of deepest yearning and bitter disbelief. But Rey could read him clearly as a book. His disbelief was no longer directed at her. He still lacked faith that there was anything worth protecting in him.

She placed a gentle hand on his chest, directly over his heart. He gave a shuddering breath at her touch. When his eyes found hers again, his were the dark skies of tempest before an apocalypse. She physically felt him trembling, wavering at the edge of the abyss…

She anchored him with the palm of her other hand against his scarred cheek.

“Forgive the past. Forgive yourself, and be Ben Solo again. You are not empty, and you are not alone.”

She lifted herself up and forward those last few inches – Such a small distance and yet so vast, when their hearts already beat almost as one. Her lips reached his ear.

“I love you, too.”

She felt him freeze and shatter all at once. A ragged noise escaped him, like a sob of both elation and despair. 

Unable to look into his eyes, Rey closed her own and pressed her forehead close against where she had murmured her declaration. She cradled his face to her with all the strength she could muster, and all the tenderness she possessed. 

“Please,” she breathed.

A moment of eternity passed, in which they breathed as one. All that mattered in the universe – All there was to fight, bleed, die, and love for – distilled down into the girl of day, clarity, and quiet, with the boy of night, oblivion, and passion.

Rey began to slowly pull back. She thought she could sense his inner clamor finding its resolution, but she needed to see it in his face.

Before she could, a blaster sounded from close behind her. Her head whirled toward the noise of the attack, but Ben’s arm had already flown up at lightning speed. With the spreading of his hand, the droid that had fired at her dropped in pieces, its blaster beam evaporating into air. 

She turned back to him, her heart racing. 

His eyes were entirely new. They were clear, shining with the light of purpose and the clarity of resolution. When his gaze seized her, it took her breath away.

“No one will ever hurt you again.”

There was only a single voice - a single unbreakable self-understanding in his words. 

_I will never go where you are not. Never again will I cause you pain. I understand now – There is still strength in me for good._

Every cell in Rey’s body rejoiced. Her heart leaped in her chest and strength she never knew she possessed flowed into every inch of her. 

This was how it felt to be whole. 

His eyes still fixed only on her, the gravity of his world, she let herself fall in.

Their mouths met. His lips were rough, hers off-centered, and yet their very souls sang in harmony. They parted and launched into action as one, too quick for anyone else to have seen.

“The contingency is live. I repeat, contingency is live!” With one hand Rey activated her comm that radioed straight to General Organa, while summoning her light saber back with her other. Ben’s red saber was already swinging in wide, graceful arcs, deflecting fire away from both of them and disarming droids in all directions.

“Are you certain?” Leia’s voice demanded.

Ben spared a glance back at her over his shoulder, silently supporting and approving of Rey’s plan – whatever it may be.

“Absolutely certain.”

And Rey ignited her light saber and leapt into battle beside him.

 

“Hux has made them ignore my stand-down orders,” Ben said some ten minutes later, when the droids and storm troopers had stopped falling back before him, and he was busy decommissioning them alongside Rey.

“I should find him and kill him. That will be the simplest way to end this.”

“No!” Rey protested, immediately gripping his wrist. His gaze met hers instantly. “You’re not leaving my side.”

If not for the bond between their minds, Ben might have thought she did not trust him. But he could feel not only her trust, but also her burning need to feel him close and immediate beside her, to ensure her way through all this carnage.

“I’ll make sure the orders get out,” Rey assured. 

Ben immediately stepped close to cover her again, while she radioed Leia the source of the First Order’s new commands and relayed Ben’s instructions regarding deactivating Hux’s defenses and neutralizing him. 

 

On the ground, the Resistance fighters knew the moment the covert team General Organa had sent into Hux’s command center succeeded in its mission. The hulking walker that issued orders to all the First Order squadrons went still. As its heavy feet crashed to the ground one last time and then froze, storm troopers and Resistance fighters alike paused and looked up towards it. Across the battle, First Order soldiers exchanged looks of uncertainty. 

At the front lines, Rey looked to where Ben stood at her side. His eyes were fixed upward toward the walker’s windows, where he had once stood himself and ordered fire upon Resistance forces. Watching the unmoving walker, his humming red saber began to lower. 

Then the walker began to wobble. Any fighters on the ground in its proximity quickly scrambled clear. It pitched forward, its legs buckling before its nose smashed hard into the ground. A minute later, a stream of Resistance troops could be seen emerging from the smoking ruins, their cheers more powerful than the sound of any weapon.

Echoing shouts of relief and jubilation flooded across the bright green plains – A battlefield only moments ago; Now finally the site of hard-fought and long-sought peace. 

Rey turned to Ben automatically, her face bright with the flush of triumph. She found his eyes still fixed on the broken remains of the walker. He wore an expression much like his usual brooding austerity, unreadable to most. Rey stopped short for a moment, guessing at all that must have been racing through him in that moment. She only prayed none of it was regret. 

She remembered all too well standing in this spot together once before, as the ecstasy of their union and adrenaline of the battle faded. She remembered all too well his look of desperate resolution, of longing so intense it bordered on pain. She remembered her own panic, hearing the words that had followed in his almost half-mad state, as he was consumed and driven by emotions so strong he had never felt their equal. 

This time she would be there to guide him. This time, his passion would not frighten her. She had suffered enough time away from him to know his passion was her own. 

Even while he was unmistakably the same man who had found her in the darkest depths of the Ach-to cave, who had made her feel belonging even sweeter and stronger than everything she had yearned for during her endless days on Jakku… She could sense all his shattered, jagged edges had melted and fused together within him, bridging his chasms and illuminating his dark.

She still saw plain as day the moment when Ben had destroyed the droid about to fire at her, and though he had been acting to protect her just like when he had killed Snoke, everything about him had been entirely different. His eyes had been clearer than she’d ever seen – The incessant, roiling pressure within him that had always been moments from tearing him apart entirely dissipated. 

But before she could go to him, a flurry of movement surrounded them. In all directions, First Order soldiers were surrendering and being rounded up into groups. At least ten Resistance fighters had fanned out to surround the two of them, planting themselves with their weapons aimed at Ben. 

Ben turned slowly, his face entirely calm. His light saber still hung low at his side for a moment before he flicked the blade off. But before any of the soldiers could even think about approaching, Rey threw herself in front of him.

“Stand down!” She yelled with a fierceness her fellows clearly did not expect. “I know you all received General Organa’s orders. Lower your weapons!”

A few of them did as bade. But the rest only seemed to grip their blasters more tightly, glaring at Ben with a mixture of mistrust and fear. Rey held an arm out, making her shielding of him unmistakable. 

“He means no harm to any of you.”

The standoff dragged on for several long, heavy moments, before a commotion began from behind the Resistance fighters.

“Listen to her! Stand down immediately!”

Rey heard Ben draw in a sharp breath behind her when he heard the unmistakable voice.

As soon as General Organa came into clear view, the fighters drew back, at last letting their weapons fall. Rey let out a deep breath of relief, finally relaxing enough to sheath her own sword.

When she looked up again, Leia had frozen in place a short distance before her, her gaze transfixed over Rey’s shoulder. Rey stepped to the side, allowing the older woman an unobstructed view of the son taken for lost, whose face she had thought she would never look upon again.

He was everything she remembered and so much more. And yet, so much smaller than the memories and regrets that had weighed at her for so long. To Leia’s unexpected amazement, everything in the world became suddenly so simple and clear, as she looked into her only son’s face again.

Ben’s jaw was clenched so tightly it looked painful. Perhaps that was why every inch of him trembled slightly. 

“Ben.” Leia spoke his name like a prayer she had long thought herself unfit to speak. She took several steps closer to him, and he watched her with all the desperation due a sight for which he had so yearned and yet not dared to imagine.

His voice came out a hoarse, rending whisper, “I thought that I… I was afraid that you were…”

Leia smiled, understanding everything at once. 

“I’m not. ….. You didn’t.”

He let her smile of acceptance and forgiveness wash over him in all its indelible power, until he finally regained the strength to move. When he did, he lurched forward towards her. The Resistance soldiers still surrounding them jumped in alarm, but Leia only opened her arms to embrace her son. 

Ben had to bend down to reach her, and yet his mother seemed to be the one holding him standing. His eyes were closed tightly where his head rested beside hers, as he shook with silent heaves. 

Leia looked up only enough to find Rey where she stood not far away. Leia’s glistening, overjoyed eyes expressed, “Thank you for bringing my son back to me.”

Covering her mouth as she fought back tears herself, Rey only shook her head slightly. 

“He came back on his own.”

 

After that, no Resistance fighter seemed to feel any need to raise arms against Kylo Ren anymore. Everyone still scattered across the battlefield left a wide, cautious berth around him, but none challenged Rey and the General’s clemency for the man who had once been their bitter enemy. 

A transformation had taken place before their very eyes. Many had never bothered to imagine the face beneath the helmet, in all its humanity and vulnerability, far less had ever seen it. For these few who had, even those hearts most hardened against him could not deny the difficulty and bravery of his conversion. His crimes were far from forgotten, but at least for today, a mother’s love and a girl’s belief would protect him, giving him time to prove himself before judgments were made.

Across the battlefield, all the wreckage and remains were being gathered together in piles. One by one, they were each lit on fire, burning away the technology that had enabled so much destruction. One of the final piles burst into flames a short distance from where Rey stood with Ben. They watched together as the flames danced higher, each perceiving different funeral pyres.

Once the pile was entirely alight, Rey saw Ben lift his light saber from his belt. He studied the severe object for a moment – The weapon many had known and feared as Kylo Ren’s trademark. His fingers clenched around it.

Rey watched as Ben threw it onto the fire. Watching him in surprise, she saw the dark clouds slowly drawing back from his face as his shoulders lifted and lowered in a deep, deep breath.

“Will you bring me to a prison?” Ben asked Rey a while later, as wounded were being treated around them or carried back into the base.

“No, I shouldn’t think so.”

Then, in full view and without thinking much about it, Rey took his hand in hers and began leading him towards the base. At this point, all she could think about was how badly she needed rest, after all the energy she had expended in the battle. That, and the absolute inconceivability of Ben being anywhere but at her side. Her mind was set only on the moment when she and Ben would finally be alone together – When he would be there corporeal and whole, and the aching hollow inside her would find completion.

Ben stared straight ahead, following without a word while his gaze fixed only on her before him. He knew plenty of people could see. He knew his presence – alive and utterly unharmed – would likely anger a great number of those people. But Rey was right there, leading his way with a hand that did not pull or force, but guided and soothed. He simply couldn’t bring himself to devote a single thought to anything else. The warmth of her hand overcame all. Whatever world there was beyond the two of them could wait.

A short ways away, Finn watched in stunned silence as the crowd parted. There was Rey, leading an almost unrecognizable man by the hand towards the base. If not for having lived so long on Starkiller Base, he would never have recognized the past figure of Kylo Ren in this man’s entirely trusting compliance and peaceful demeanor.

A hand slid into Finn’s. He looked down to his left and found Rose smiling up at him. She gave his fingers a slight squeeze.

“Remember? By saving those we love.”


	2. Rejoining the World; After The Battle

"Rey, I wanted to check that you..."

Finn stopped in his tracks when Rey's door slid open all the way. He froze at the threshold, stunned at the sight that greeted him and cowed by Rey's quick but soft ‘shhh’ in his direction.

Finn had not fully considered where Kylo Ren would spend his first night in the base – Or the Starter Ground, as it was now being called, since with the end of the war a 'base' was no longer necessary. But Finn certainly hadn't expected to find him here.

In Rey's room. Asleep. With his back to the door and his head in Rey's lap. Rey's fingers had frozen in his hair while she fixed Finn with a look of warning.

"I- well... " Finn attempted to whisper rather awkwardly, "I wondered if I could talk to you about..." Frankly, about precisely THIS.

"Tomorrow," she whispered with all the finality such a soft sound could hold. "This is the first real rest he's had in a long time."

Finn could only nod. "Tomorrow," he whispered back before reversing and letting the door close again. Just before it sealed, he saw Rey turn an expression of concerned tenderness back towards the man sleeping in her lap.

Finn stood still for a while, struggling. He didn't move. He didn't even avert his gaze from the now-shut door before him.

His instinct to simply run inside, grab Rey, and pull her away to where it was safe warred with his utter bafflement at seeing Kylo completely unmasked and voluntarily unmade. Seeing that dark, wavy tangle of hair in Rey's lap was the first time Finn realized that Ben Solo really existed. 

In a deep, ugly part of him, frustration and a feeling of anticlimax simmered. Now directionless, he found himself at a loss what to do with it, or how to resolve it. Kylo Ren - the man Finn had quickly learned to fear, whose wrath must always be avoided - had simply ceased to exist somewhere between the combined force that was Rey and Ben Solo.

Finn couldn’t say if it was fair. But it had happened; and Finn surprised himself with what seemed an inability to feel vengeful towards a man sleeping defenseless and recovering.

What unnerved Finn to the bone was that he had just seen something he recognized in the man who used to be Kylo Ren. Finn saw himself as a boy, newly transported to Starkiller Base, alone and afraid, where the comfort and tenderness of one person would have unmade and reshaped his whole world.

 

~~~

 

Aware that he walked on thin ice with many of the former Resistance fighters, Ben at first refused to use the Force in any way - wary of frightening people or giving anyone the pretext to accuse him of relapse or deceit. But after several days lying dormant, his power began to escape from him in uncontrollable bursts. 

First, when he had nightmares. He would see Snoke’s face, leering at him from a shroud of darkness. He would see his own hands clad in harsh gloves again. They would be wet with something dark and sticky… Sometimes he would look up to find his mother’s body, sometimes Rey’s…

Usually, Rey would sense the shadows and terror creeping into her own sleep, and wake quickly enough to rouse him before his projections affected others.

Then, it started happening when making love with Rey. Every object in their room would begin to hover inches above the ground. Once, with Rey wrapped closer around him than his own skin and the molten core of her pulling him still deeper, one of the windows had shattered. 

Their first time, every digital monitor in the entire complex had gone haywire. Technicians had rushed to find the General to alert her of all the erratic readings. She studied the figures while they asked her how many people they could send to check all the equipment. 

Just when she was about to respond, Leia’s partially open mouth froze and abruptly closed again. Her eyes squinted slightly as if straining to hear something just beyond her senses. Then, she seemed to turn a faint shade of pink and loudly cleared her throat.

“It’s probably just the gauges. Give it an hour, and if they don’t return to normal, assemble your team then.”

Everyone nodded and began to withdraw. Before the door closed, Leia called after them, “Actually, better give it two hours.”

 

~~~

 

Again, Rey tried to offer him the light saber Leia had given her.

“Luke meant it to be yours.”

Ben only shook his head, seeming unwilling even to look at the object.

“What is it you’re afraid of?” Rey demanded, annoyance flaring. “You cannot simply push your power away and hope it will disappear. It is a part of you.”

Ben’s eyes finally flicked towards the light saber, but his expression went heavy and resentful.

“A part of me that killed and destroyed, more than I can ever atone for.”

Rey bit her lip, falling silent for a moment as she watched Ben. She could see in his face a taste of the same bitter self-reproach that had almost drowned her, the first time she felt it in his mind. It was different now. It was honest. He recognized the empathy within him that was the true source of his remorse, no longer desperately trying to deny it and stamp it out.

Rey knew he had come a long way, but had to wonder whether this was just another form of self-punishment. She reached out to touch his arm. His gaze lingered uneasily on the light saber for a moment more, before slowly rising to her face.

“In your hands, I know it will do good. I can’t say the same for anything my hands have touched.”

Rey pushed the light saber aside, sensing the topic closed for now. In its place, she shifted herself towards him until she could loop her arms around his neck and lean her weight against him.

“What about me?” she murmured. “Your hands have not hurt me.”

He let out a hushed breath she could feel flutter across her lips. He was looking at her with a vibrating intensity, as if she were the source of everything worthwhile in the world. Like a man who spent years in darkness helplessly looks to the sun, even as it threatens to burn him.

“My faltering hands could never touch you. I used to be terribly afraid that if I were too close to you, I would blot you out. But nothing could ever do that.”

He lifted a hand to touch her face reverently. She leaned into the touch, but kept her gaze even with his.

“But what if I wanted you to touch me?”

As if to demonstrate, she lifted a hand to press his palm flat against her cheek.

Though still dry, his eyes fogged over. They both knew what she meant. In the simple physical sense, Ben had already touched her in almost every way. But there were still occasional moments when she sensed his fear, when he withdrew into himself before her brightness. Rey could never know if he was frightened for himself or for her. Even Ben couldn’t say for sure. 

Day by day she broke down each barrier within her that had once been raised against him. But as she released herself entirely to him - to make sure he knew he was just as much a part of her as she was of him - there were moments when he thought the best form of repayment was keeping his darkest places locked up where she couldn’t reach them. Even though she had reassured him so many times by now that together they could conquer all, that keeping his shadows caged only gave them power, he still couldn’t bring himself to entirely let go. 

Above everything, his most urgent need was to protect her. He knew it bothered her sometimes, as they were partners and equals, but he needed time. 

Before he tried to harness the Force again, he needed to be sure what he would see within himself when he did.

This time, Rey would witness everything, and he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he disappointed her again.

“You are the one thing I know I could never break. I just… ” 

His voice broke off and his head dipped downwards. His mouth tightened and twitched as he struggled to see through the smoke still lingering inside him. Slowly, he was learning how to express and order the chaos, so Rey could understand.

She let him take his time. She carded her fingers idly through his hair once, then bent to lean her forehead against his.

“I want to be strong enough for you. I want to carry half the balance, as I should.”

Ben wasn’t looking into her eyes when he said it, but she felt his fingers dipping tighter against her waist.

Thinking over his words for a moment, Rey took the opportunity to draw him in closer. She guided his head down to rest beneath her own chin, her arms folding around his shoulders. Holding him like this, it still surprised her to feel the broad muscles across his back and the wide span of his shoulders – to feel the contrast in physical size and strength between them, when their souls were so achingly alike.

“You have nothing to prove,” Rey whispered into his hair. She could feel him relaxing against her, sense him closing his eyes. Her heart still shuddered with honored gladness laced with fear, to feel him trusting her so completely.

She went on, “Not to me. I’m with you no matter what. I’ve seen the roughest parts of you already, and it was you who made the decision to leave them behind. You don’t have to change – Not for me.”

Gazing towards the window, Rey looked out and remembered all the times she had sat alone in this room, silently yearning for the mind that touched her own in all the most exquisite ways. While he was the embodiment of strength and fury utterly unfamiliar yet necessary to her being, he was also a part of herself as familiar as breathing. 

She often wished she could simply hide away with him, now that he was finally here. But she knew the challenges he’d faced and the decisions he’d made were bigger than only her. She planned to always be there at his side ready to guide him if he needed, but challenging as it was, she knew he had to walk on his own.

From the window, Rey could see part of what had been the battlefield. Even where the scorch marks and bomb holes had been deepest, she could see green life slowly beginning its return.

Feeling his heart beating slow and calm along with hers, she completed in a soft voice, “But you have to let yourself keep growing. You owe it to yourself, to stop thinking about wastelands and empty spaces. You are warm, rich, and gifted in more ways than you know. I feel it all and I know you do, too. Perhaps it scares you, because you don’t think you deserve to create or regrow. But you do. We all do.”

She felt him turn to lay the side of his head against her chest. In the middle of the movement, his lips briefly caressed the dip between her shoulder blades.

How could he think himself incapable of creation – when he could make her feel all this?

“It’s a part of life I think you could be very good for.” 

 

~~~

 

While Rey trained, Ben stood in a back corner, watching. He had asked her why she still trained, what it was she was preparing herself for.

“You know as well as I do that the Force still flows within us. It always will. I’ve finally begun finding peace with that power, but you know better than anyone how hard-earned that peace is.”

He still felt awe before her unwavering faith and strength. Just like him, she knew all too well her almost infinitesimal place in the universe. She knew the struggle against the meaningless, for safety and self-understanding amidst the invisible energies holding the world together and pulling it apart at the same time. And yet she kept a light kindled even when the darkness grew heaviest. 

While he had drawn back into the shadows to shroud his pain and let coldness freeze the parts of him that bled, Rey faced the harsh, unforgiving light of knowledge and truth head-on. She fully bared her heart and her weaknesses, until she could transform and evolve beyond them.

The clamoring disquiet in his soul had finally eased, but he still wasn’t ready to open himself to the Force again. He wasn’t prepared yet to see the shape of the sparks and shadows it would draw from him. 

With Rey, he became someone he could begin bearing to live with. Her love and care proved the existence of something worth saving in his heart, and as he felt her share the same joy and completion that almost overwhelmed him each time he touched her, he sensed new strength rising in him every day. 

For the first time, he sensed his power beginning to flow from a place of control and illumination. Instead of poisoning him, it balanced and grounded him. Everything seemed so much clearer now – With something to fight for and protect. He had spent his whole life denying and resisting his attachments; Trying to saw away every thread that extended from his heart. Now, he no longer feared them. Rey was living proof of their ability to elevate and empower.

But he didn’t quite trust himself yet to let his old power flow again. He worried he wasn’t strong enough to channel it between his new boundaries. Though he buried them more deeply every day, he feared his chasms of rage might rekindle. 

His arms folded in front of him, Ben leaned back into a corner of the training room – For all intents and purposes a silent statue as he watched Rey move through her daily drills. He remembered countless similar hours in his own youth, during his time in Luke’s training. Through the aura of serenity Rey emitted as she reached out into the room’s energy, Ben could finally look back on the memories without them crushing him. It was a wholly new experience, to see his boyhood echoed in her movements. To watch them in his mind’s eye wholly at peace, and see not a monster lying in wait, but simply a boy.

A thin but constant stream of people passed in and out of the training room. Scattered across the wide-open floor, people stood in groups conversing or running sparring exercises. This was only one form of the ex-Resistance members’ dedication to rebuilding.

Rey’s training drew the most attention, though mostly in the form of covert stares or hurried waves of greeting. She rotated between silent meditation and bursts of spinning, energetic weapons drills with her staff.

She had told Ben about her difficulty connecting with the Resistance members, while they had been apart and he still commanding the First Order. But now that she no longer felt pulled between two places at once, her guileless smiles and unassuming strength brought her easy popularity. 

For someone who had spent the majority of her youth in virtual solitude on Jakku, she adapted remarkably well. While she greeted new friends with earnest delight, she gently tempered those who inclined towards idolization of one of the last known Force users.

Ben’s presence helped with that. No matter where Rey went or what she did, Ben was her silent shadow. Rey did her best to draw him out of his sullen shell, and close the divide between him and the many people who seemed unable or unwilling to see him as human and feeling. But mistrust lingered on both sides. The Resistance remembered their losses, and he did not trust himself to prove any of them wrong.

Today, Rey’s annoyance bristled more than usual with each person who greeted her, then hurried on with either a scornful glance towards Ben’s corner, or no acknowledgement at all. She feared he was becoming more isolated each day. Just like he’d cut himself off from the Force, he had accepted everyone’s silent determination to ostracize him from their budding community. 

Rey knew reconciliation was not something she could accomplish on her own, but she had no allies in sight. While she thought it unfair to blame a single person for every atrocity committed by a massive regime, she could hardly ask ex-Resistance fighters to forget their losses or their mourned. And with Ben still so fragile as he attempted to reconcile his remorse with his healing, she knew his penitence stabbed far too deeply to ask him to expose the wounds.

Rey was sweating, her staff making zinging arcs in the air when Finn and Rose entered the training room. Rey stilled, breathing hard but immediately smiling.

“So Finn, I guess you owe me those fifty units, huh? Told you I wouldn’t see you here until after lunch.”

“He wouldn’t have come at all if I hadn’t made him, so I think I should get half,” Rose piped up. Finn shot her a look of betrayal as they made their over.

“Rey, have you done the floaty thing yet?” Finn asked.

Rey lifted an amused eyebrow. “Floaty thing?”

“I told Rose about it and she really wants to see.”

Rey noticed Rose’s hopeful look, so she simply shook her head with a sigh of mock exasperation.

“Sure, Finn, just go right ahead and make the Force sound like a party trick.”

Rey went to retrieve three small, round weights. She placed them down in a row on the floor, then settled herself down beside them. Finn and Rose took places across from her.

“I’m surprised you haven’t ever tried this yourself, Finn.” With a look towards Rose, Rey added, “He fought with a light saber once, you know. Didn’t do too bad of a job.”

Finn made an expression between preening and scoffing.

“Twice, actually. First time, I only held onto it for about a minute. The second time was better… until the part when I got all sliced and diced.”

Finn’s words were joking and unthinking, but Rey barely suppressed a wince. Finn thankfully hadn’t looked in his direction, but that was nevertheless the moment Ben finally lifted himself out of his corner and drifted towards the room’s wide windows. 

Looking out, he crossed his hands loosely behind his back, but Rey could read the tension in his shoulders. He wore looser clothes these days and almost all grey, but sometimes he still seemed just as caged as he had been by thick black cloaks and harsh uniforms.

Rey rounded on Finn with a silent reproachful look. Finn lifted his hands to indicate an accident. Then he shot Rey a loaded look launching a handful of questions at once. 

He pointed towards Ben’s back, then at Rey, made a crossing-slashing gesture before his own face, then leveled Rey with a pointed look. Rey breathed out quickly and shook her head, waving her hands in the air to clear the whole silent conversation. 

Rose had watched it all at a total loss.

“Well, Rose,” Rey said briskly. “I’ll warn you in advance, I certainly haven’t mastered this. Some days, I can only focus enough to move one or two, and that’s when I’m lucky.”

“But…,” Rose began in clear confusion, “You cleared aside all those rocks back on Crait, and it looked like you didn’t even break a sweat.”

Rey smiled distantly, lost in the memory for a moment. She felt Ben turn towards her slightly at the window. They hardly talked about Crait, so she’d never fully retold her incredible feat to clear the base’s escape. Now sharing the memory with him, he echoed her pride in how she had channeled her untrained and often undisciplined power.

“It’s so much different, sitting here where it’s safe and peaceful. But when you’re watching the beginning of the end for everyone you care about – you can suddenly do things you never would have dreamed.”

Rose and Finn shared a soft look of understanding. Rose watched with new interest and respect as Rey closed her eyes, laid her hands on her knees, and gathered gravity into her breathing.

The first weight rose slowly into the air. It moved haltingly until it stilled about a foot off the ground, slowly rotated for a few moments, then sunk back to the floor. The second weight began to rise, but stuttered halfway in its ascent. Rey’s brow furrowed in concentration and effort as the ball’s weight began to pull away from her. This one rotated only once before sinking quickly back down to the floor, where it landed with a dull thud. 

The third weight began to shake on the ground. Finn and Rose leaned closer, not even daring to breathe as they witnessed Rey’s silent endeavor to wrap her control around the object so intent on defying her. It lifted a fraction off the ground, then moved no more. Rey’s fingers began turning white where they gripped her knees as she continued to strain. But the more she fought, the more immovable the object seemed to become.

“Stop trying to control the object’s will.” Ben’s voice came so suddenly, Rey jumped and the weight fell flat again. “No one can do that. You have to join the flow of energy between it and yourself. Feel where your wills are the same, and direct the tide from within.”

Rey turned to meet Ben’s gaze, watching him come a few steps closer from the window. There was a refreshing purity of focus in his eyes. He looked only between her and the round weights, thinking only of her success if he managed to explain well enough.

“You’re trying to bend the object to your will, which worked well enough with the first two but weakens you too much. You are strongest when you harness the energy in everything around you. Sense it and cooperate with it. Look, then it will come to meet you…”

With the world shrunk away to only he and Rey, Ben unthinkingly lifted a hand towards the weights. If she sensed the way he focused his mind to the task, she could surely do the same…

A sharp intake of breath sounded across the room. Ben froze, his hand arrested in mid-air.

Every pair of eyes in the whole room were fixed on him. The rare sound of his voice had created silence so complete, the gasp could have been a gunshot. Ben’s gaze didn’t even make it to Finn and Rose; He caught others watching his semi-outstretched hand in alarm, and could go no further.

Ice rushed over him suddenly and cruelly. His shoulders hunched inward with the might of it and he instantly began to withdraw again.

Moving in a flash, Rey reached up from the floor to catch his bare hand before it could fall all the way back to his side. When his eyes met hers, she found them desolate and almost surrendered. 

Rey’s mouth pinched in anger. Even if only this one time, she would make a stand.

“No. Show me. Clearly, I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Rey saw Ben’s gaze trembling, saw it threatening to move around the room again. She gripped his hand more tightly to keep his focus only on her and away from the hostility. 

“Help me finish the exercise.”

Her tone sounding much like a command, she pulled his hand until he had no choice but to sit down beside her. His long legs folded clumsily.

He looked only at the three weights lined up on the floor. He tried to filter out all perception except for Rey’s presence beside him, warm and encouraging. 

She wanted his help. That was simple enough, wasn’t it? He took a slow, measured breath. 

“It’s not about forcing them to do what you want. If you respect and harness their energy, then they move in sync with you.”

Ben closed his eyes. All three weights lifted gracefully off the floor. They rose in unison before hovering in a seamless row. They spun in the air for a few moments, before sinking gently and precisely to the floor again. Between all the stunned, relieved, or impressed expressions throughout the room, Rey did her best to hide her joy and pride. 

Ben had consciously, purposefully used his power for the first time since the battle. He had feared it might control him rather than the reverse, but Rey had known there was no reason to fear. It had emerged simply and beautifully, displaying the true essence of where it came from. 

Across from Rey, Rose broke into abrupt and enthusiastic applause. Ben jumped slightly, his eyes flying open almost comically to find the source of the unexpected adulation. 

The tension stretching through the room instantly collapsed. Others went back to their own tasks and conversations as Rose exclaimed, “That was amazing! It was like you could have done it in your sleep!”

Ben was still looking at the floor, but a trace of color blotted his face. His expression remained mostly flat and undecided, but his gaze flashed to Rose before turning to Rey.

“Not quite as impressive as moving a whole wall of stones.”

Rey beamed at him, coaxing at least a quirk in one corner of his mouth as she replied, “That was a fluke. Don’t take it personally.”

His gaze fixed on Rey, the other corner of Ben’s mouth evened out into the bare hint of a smile. It wasn’t an expression of happiness, per se, but of dearly prized peace. 

During this long moment when Rey and Ben existed only to each other and were each other’s entire existence, something opened and released in Finn’s heart. For the first time since the battle, he realized he finally felt resolved; His lingering feeling of responsibility to the past evaporated. This future of promise and healing deserved better.

Then, Finn looked sideways and found Rose eyeing Ben with a thoughtful, inscrutable expression. A bit unnerved by the uncharacteristic seriousness in her face, Finn was about to suggest to her that they leave Rey with Ben to the rest of her training.

Before he could, Rose suddenly shoved her hand out towards Ben, all her fingers extended. Slightly startled, Ben looked at it, then her with an expression mixing quizzical and cautious. 

She gave him her most honest smile. “I’m sorry I never thanked you before. We all should have. We probably wouldn’t have won if it hadn’t been for your help.” 

The dour shadow usually hiding his features split in surprise. His mouth opened and then stalled, seeming unsure of how to process much less respond.

“It’s easy to know what to do, when we fought the First Order our whole lives. I can’t imagine how hard it is to fight them out from inside yourself.”

Rose didn’t back down. She kept her hand held out steady, and she held his gaze until it shifted from doubtful, to considering, to deeply affected. In marked contrast to his effortless levitation of the weights, it seemed to take the effort of Ben’s whole body for him to swallow breath. When he finally spoke, his voice was low and measured.

“I chose that fight, and so the punishment was just. I’m not sure I can say the same of your words, whether I deserve…”

“Ben,” Rey cut him off firmly. Ben’s mouth snapped instantly shut, his eyes shooting towards her. She fixed him with a fierce look bordering a glower. “No one should be condemned to only suffering. Those who suffer because they truly understand the depth of their mistakes deserve the chance to right them again.”

To indicate her agreement, Rose held her hand up a little higher. Ben’s gaze swung back, still eyeing the proffered hand with calculation and uncertainty.

His gaze slid further on to Finn. Finn instantly straightened up rigid. An enduring defense instinct screamed at him to run, to stand, to do something, but Finn forced himself to keep still. With Rose displaying such courage and heart beside him, Finn knew he must be strong enough to beat back any suspicion in his eyes, and return the gaze just as he would for any other person.

“Did your wounds heal?”

Ben spoke the question so softly and suddenly, Finn almost missed it. Though he didn’t need any extra time to know which wounds were referenced.

“Um. Eventually they did. I was unconscious for a long time. I missed Rey leaving to go find Skywalker. But when I did wake up, I was back in the game pretty quickly.”

“Good. That’s… good.”

Rey rescued the terribly awkward moment that followed with her best attempt at a joke, “Don’t worry. I paid him back for it already.”

To Finn’s immense surprise, a tiny yet unmistakable smile appeared on Ben’s face.

“You certainly did.”

Rose cleared her throat and gave her still-extended hand a little wiggle.

“Don’t make a girl wait too long here.”

A calm had finally surfaced in Ben’s eyes. This time, his expression was one at ease when he looked at Rose’s hand one last time.

He reached out to take it. Rose smiled brightly as she gave his hand an enthusiastic shake. He seemed to be biting the inside of his own lip, trying to hold it in place. 

Rose gasped suddenly, but instead of letting go of Ben’s hand, she excitedly gripped it between both of her own.

“Wait... wait, wait, wait, I have a question. Believe me, it’s very important.”

Ben looked wary yet vaguely amused. “Yes?”

Rose tilted her head towards the weights. 

“Can you juggle them? Without touching them?”

“Can I…?” Ben reacted naturally with a sound almost approximating a laugh.

When Rose didn’t immediately confirm it as a joke, Ben equivocated, “I guess it could be amusing to try…”

Rey burst into a proper, surprised laugh while Rose let go of Ben’s hand to punch the air in excitement. She grabbed the three balls and laid them down again directly in front of Ben, practically quivering in excitement as she settled down to watch. 

“You might want to move back in case this doesn’t go so well…” 

“I was a Resistance fighter. Some little balls don’t scare me.”

Watching Ben prepare himself for the attempt with the seeds of a smile on his face, Rey slid over to Finn’s side. 

Her heart feeling full to bursting, she nudged Finn’s shoulder with her own. “You’ve got the best catch in the whole place, there.”

Finn smiled in an embarrassed sort of way as he watched Rose. She was softly cheering Ben on as the three balls lifted into the air again, then quickly began protesting whether Ben even knew what juggling was. The balls repeatedly tumbled to the ground, but Rose kept gathering them up again.

“It’s taken ages to see him smile like that,” Rey mused, watching an undeniable laugh on Ben’s face as he ducked to dodge a wayward ball. As Ben continued trying and Rose eventually told him he was improving, Rey nudged Finn again and gestured slightly toward the pair.

“Should we be worried, here?”

Finn’s smile grew as this time Rose dodged a ball, and Ben began profusely apologizing. 

“Nah, she’s like this with everyone.”

“She’s perfect for you. I’m glad.”

Ben finally managed to coax the three balls to arc and dip in the air in an increasingly impressive display. Eventually, thinking over Rey’s words and through the slowly-clearing muddle of his own feelings, Finn spoke up again, “You know, I’ve gotta say… I never in a million years would have thought he would be good for you…”

Rey waited, giving Finn an extra moment to complete his thought but already smiling. Finn realized he didn’t quite know how to say what he was thinking, but Rey already knew.

“But now…?” Rey prompted.

Finn swerved to a joking tone instead, “No, that’s it for now. That’s where I am.”

Rey gasped in mock insult and gave Finn a shove. When he burst into laughter, Ben and Rose both looked over. The balls were now revolving in a wide orbit around Ben’s head. 

Ben met Rey’s gaze, and his eyes had never seemed so light. 

She sent him a glistening smile. She could tell by the soft warmth in his face – soon he would be able to return it.


End file.
